A Matter of Taste
by Peahenny
Summary: Candy and fun were serious business, but the unfortunate reality is that sometimes the fights had been rigged from the start. [A Beppi and Bon Bon story, remastered.]


_A/N: This is the official rewrite to "Sweet Affairs" which is also my story. I have it listed on another site and never got around to posting it here but now I have the opportunity to do so with this remaster, as this my alt writing account. Updates may take a long time as I am slowly overcoming a long writer's hiatus but do enjoy!_

* * *

Out of all the things that she hated, the clown was the absolute worst.

From atop of the tallest gingerbread tower, the candied queen scowled. It had been a fair summer night, tinged with the heat of the day as the twilight winds pushed it out to sea. There had been hardly a cloud hanging in the twinkling sky, for they had been one of her favorite things to watch since her childhood. The esteemed Baroness von Bon Bon had once been as human as the rest of the lot on this island of sinners, looking up to the heavens for signs of dreams to come.

Arms folded against the hard frosting along the bannister, she glared up at the stars. On many occasions she'd strain her perspective with a tight enough squint to see shapes of rabbits and lollipops in what she called the cotton candy of the sky, and if she were truly lucky then perhaps an actual dragon or sky witch would show to frolic among the fluff. Even at her age, it felt good to satisfy her inner child in a space where she felt hidden and safe.

Sometimes, she even enjoyed looking down at her kingdom on these twilit nights, catching the slivers of raw moonlight turning her lawn into a large bed of shimmering glass. The frosted tips of the guard stations reminded her of fresh snow. Sugarland was her oasis, her art.

But if she cast her glances slow enough, her gaze had the tendency to wander west before she could stop herself. It was hard not to during the summer months especially, given its time as the season of holiday. There was always a tension that tightened in her neck like a wire whenever she saw _it_ sitting there, like a disease in bright paint.

The Baroness always closed shop at a reasonable hour; the fairgrounds held no rules. It was bright like a crop of mushrooms in the dark and it was louder than a pit of devils. She could watch from her great roost and still pick up the faintest screams from the attractions or the ghostly piping of that damned, damned music. On the worst nights when the winds became fierce and sharp, she had to scrunch her nose to close off the tinges of grease and sugar as they clung to the currents. That carnival represented everything that she despised when it came to sweet things, and for that it was normal to feel the beginnings of her fuming anger around the moment she remembered that horrid place.

Her ritual was the same. She'd storm back into her private quarters and kick off her slippers with the little dolloped puff balls just before she could throw herself onto her perfect red velvet bed and scream into the sheets like a petulant child. She hated that circus and how it sucked the life out of Sugarland. She hated how it mocked her art and bastardized it. It was all that awful clown's fault; it always was. Per tradition, she would blindly fumble for her pillows and squeeze them tight against her face while she would bite the fabric and then throw it back to land a few good punches and then launch it to parts unknown. Thinking it as the clown's grinning face always helped, because it was all his fault. She used to be so happy.

Something was amiss on this night's ritual, however. As Bon Bon lay splayed across the bed, her golden glare burning the ceiling, she heard a meek knocking at her chocolate door. She said nothing as a terrified servant slipped in. It was her chocolate turtle butler, fiddling with his cracker claws and stuttering to her that the jelly penguins had escaped from their enclosure again.

He waited, standing there before the firing squad as he wrung his cuffs while under her sharp gaze. The silence betrayed her emotions so he stammered his report out again, head slipping further down into his shell with each passing word. Still she said nothing, though he watched her close her eyes, take a deep breath and then open them again as she conjured up an unnervingly pleasant smile.

Her spine compelled her to the edge of the bed, rolling her body forward in an impish creep while she asked him sweetly what he meant: the penguin enclosure had a more complex lock now. Did he not test it after he had assured her? She could see the whites of his eyes almost being eaten out by his pupils and the shadows within his shell, looking like two thin white rings peering up at her. His heavy swallow almost echoed out as he meekly confessed that he had. By this point she was looming over him, tall and thin as a rail and yet incredibly monstrous. Her eyes seemed to be glowing from pure malice alone while her smile slipped open into a cracking grin.

The Baroness chuckled primly and placed her hand on the back of his shell. She asked him again, sweet as sugar, why they had escaped then, and why he was up here bothering her personally instead of the tenders to her candied petting zoo out in the back garden. The sound of the turtle's terrified sniffling only drew her eyes into sharp points; he could see himself in the shine of her teeth.

They were last seen fleeing towards the direction of the circus.

The butler was left trembling in his spats as a whirlwind of ice billowed past him and slammed the door shut.

Of course the penguins got out again. Of course. It was funny how the universe smiled so cruelly upon her.

Bon Bon shouldn't have been surprised that the damned clown had stolen yet another thing from her. He had the most infuriating habit of stealing her ideas, her guests and now her creations while leaving behind insultingly simple junk in return. She already saw a new balloon floating in the hallway and reached up to yank it down and explode it between her hands while her candy maids tumbled off of their pileup to reach it. They watched like cowering dogs as their mistress stalked down the red licorice carpet towards the front doors to the castle.

She stomped down the candied cobblestone steps and made a grand sweep to the back end of Sugarland's grounds. The front lawn was a wonderland of sugarspun arts, of marzipan statues and candy glass flowers. In the back that was the petting zoo for the younger guests. Out in the pens dozed candy floss sheep, taffy geese with extendable necks, cats made of whipped cream and many other strange and colorful abominations she had once doodled in the journals of her youth. A few hedgehogs made of rock candy twitched their noses from within the smallest of pens as she passed by towards the end of the plot. The jelly penguins had occupied the largest enclosure, which was expected to accommodate the amount of ice and fruit punch that they swam in. With the proper training, they even had learned to conjure up perfectly rounded snow cones. Bon Bon had been riding on them being one of the biggest draws for ticket sales though to see the enclosure empty (again) was as comforting as seeing cash on fire.

She stared at the pen for a moment before she slumped against the wall fencing and tapped her fist against one of the pegs. The penguins had been one of her favorite creations and it stung more than anything that they kept escaping. The first incident hadn't been so bad as they stayed within the grounds, but for some reason her nitwit guards hadn't even stopped the waddlers from breaking lose for good. The Baroness sighed and rested her face on her propped arm, pondering their motives. They were fed well and received plenty of attention, and yet they felt at home elsewhere...but in the belly of that awful freakshow? That was cold, even for penguins.

Her brows knit and she slowly pulled her eyes back up, glaring over the railing at her reflection in the water. The reminder stirred a memory of that first escape, in that the waterfowl were scrambling around Sugarland trying to chase some of those obnoxious balloons that had floated over the spires.

Bon Bon growled and raked her fingers against the thick chocolate barriers. She remembered the balloons being balloon animals, that's how ridiculous they were. Little shiny balloon animals that squeaked and bounced and frolicked among her babies, inciting rebellion by play as those curious bird squawks haunted her ears for the nights that followed. Those bouncy little bastards met the end of her shotgun before the night was over and, surprisingly, they hadn't floated over since. She would have fondly remembered handiwork, but first...those little traitors needed to come home. She rubbed her face, hands shaking so bad from rising anger that she eventually bashed them along the fencing, again and again until she barked her frustrations up to the stars.

Curse that damned clown.

* * *

He checked his teeth by grinning into a funhouse mirror. Curses galore, was he a handsome fella. Beppi bounced on his heels to see all angles of the wide stretching smile before he stepped back and cackled at his reflection. The clown patted his bicolor cheeks and hummed giddily to himself, spinning on his heels and strutting right back out into the fray.

He loved his fairgrounds, but especially more so at night. Having been at this business for years, his eyes still twinkled whenever he looked up at the dazzling gleam of lights splashing into each other like watercolors on fire. Not even the stars above could replicate that boyish glee that a carnival always delivered.

He gazed out at the swarm of happy faces and placed his hands within hidden pockets as he slipped back into the throngs. All around him, he could hear the beautiful symphony of fair games and bells, of laughter and screams of joy and those toe-tapping tunes that he had long memorized. His steps turned more into a skipping little jig as he gave a thumbs up to a mouse who won a stuffed cat at the ring toss stall.

Life was good here.

To think, it had all been rocks and sea grass at one point, twenty fast years ago. Beppi puffed his chest out with pride with his colorful brows raised high as he reflected on all the grit and determination it took to build his dream home. A circus, of all places!

It was truly a beautiful place in all seasons, but summer was his favorite. He could listen to the honey bees dancing along the coastal flowers and he loved to smell the sweetness of the fruit trees within the island's central park. It was like springtime but amplified, where everything was gorged with merriment and bursting with beauty. He was smiling at those simple thoughts it grew just a smidgen wider as the coated spires of Sugarland rose among the tops of the tents and trees, looming like a fairytale castle only a minor horizon away. The clown paused and trapped his tongue between his teeth, raising a brow as he remembered.

Did she enjoy the balloon animals?

He realized now that they hadn't floated back, so it was natural to assume that she accepted and that brought warmth to his heart. She must have really appreciated all the little gifts and trinkets he had been tying to them too! That thought brought him into a little jump as he clapped his hands together. She deserved to be happy.

Beppi continued to step through the crowd, but his eyes did their best to remain on the candy towers. For a place so beautiful and unique in design...there really wasn't anybody there. He should know; he tried visiting many times.

The clown halted in his step and took a few more in reverse to witness a rather sweet sight. He paused his stroll to assist a young boy at the balloon pop stall.

The lad was a sweet little fella, dressed in his Sunday best and his human cheeks a strawberry red from a day out in the summer sun. He had been teetering in his spot while trying to aim a heavy dart while an older boy with sweaty brown hair stood nearby, gaze set on a girl across the way. Beppi sank onto his haunches and grinned at the child, who had frozen up and blinked. He pointed at the dart, the boy smiled and he handed it over.

It was definitely the wiser decision to let a professional handle the pointy stuff. The clown made a show with alternating a squint in his eyes, tilting his neck from side to side like a as he scrutinized his balloon targets. The little boy giggled as he watched him. Beppi slowly stood up with a warrior's composure, taking one step back, two steps back and then giving one spin...two spins...three spins and then four and five and six and on the seventh he lunged forward. The dart was stabbed into the counter while he made a scene of crawling up onto it, ultimately taking one step extra and falling right into the pit on the other side with a comedic shriek. When Beppi clawed his way back up, an audience of giggling children had congregated, including the older boy who snickered with his arms crossed. The clown beamed and looked behind his shoulder at the rows of balloons lined up. He took a moment to let the dizziness subside before he pointed to a pink balloon while looking at the little boy. The child shook his head while making a disgusted face. Beppi hummed and then pointed to the green balloon right below it.

The boy shook his head again, pawing at his shirt collar. He then pointed at the target he had been aiming for earlier, to which Beppi looked and squinted until he too pointed at the blue balloon that had been sitting on the very top center. The boy nodded and smiled as he watched the clown pick up the dart and stand on his tiptoes to stab it right into its. Beppi then stepped right back onto the countertop to size up the array of stuffed animals hanging from the canopy, though he again watched the child's reactions to each one's he touched. It wasn't long before the boy was hugging a plush elephant almost double his size while the older boy calmly kept his hand on the younger's back for support. The tender sight made the clown smile.

Beppi quickly returned to the crowded walkways between the many tents and stalls, but his steps were much slower this time. He watched the various couples out on their dates and of the parades of children scampering around with shiny coins clasped tight within their small hands. There was a heavy presence of innocence and wonder running rampant under the spell of the circus, though he sometimes stopped to really take it all in.

It was moments like this where the clown paint started to dull as reality sobered him up. He stopped in the middle of his stroll towards the ferris wheel and looked up at the clouds circling above it.

It was strange to think that he was in his forties, when all his life he always had felt the same deep down. Every morning he woke up with the same boyish grin under the same quilt that his grandmother had made in his youth. He'd take the same primping time in front of the same mirror next to the same wardrobe, but even if his routines never changed he still felt that strong joy of performing to the same masses day after day, year after year. He had truly worked hard to build this little patch of heaven for himself on this island of dreamers and the deja vu was something he cherished: there'd one day be his final performance, after all. It just was easier to live each day like it was his last.

The clown's smile was a bit softer as his eyes wandered in tandem to his feet, and he drifted a bit more slowly through the patches of tourists. He eyes lingered more on the lovers around the food stalls and tried to convince himself that it really hadn't been all that long since he had last been on a date. In fact, he had charmed many fair ladies during his many shows, but the infatuation only lasted until the creeping dawn set in.

His ears strained a bit to really pick up the giggles of children who awed at the side shows and dared their packmates to be brave and take to the attractions. He had plenty of time to wonder what children of his own would look like, but there was nothing wrong with having hundreds who came and went with each passing day. Beppi had long mused that it didn't matter if he couldn't remember all their names or if his little ones all had different eyes and hair, of having feathers or metal bits or fingers over paws.

It all did matter, of course, but he never tried to stop grinning to tell himself different.

He often rode the ferris wheel before shutting down the carnival for the night, as it provided a sense of peace and quiet far above the noisy grounds. He could sit high at the tallest arc and stare up at the tender moon or the fluffy clouds and just let his mind wander. As he settled into his carriage, Beppi hummed and rested his cheek against an upturned fist. While the ride ascended, so did his heart rate.

He was thinking of her again, made easier when the castle to her kingdom came back into his view. He'd try to put off staring at it as much as he could, but when he was up this high it was hard not to. Just like clockwork, he'd lean against the lap bar and cross his arms while looking at the sparkling sugar tops with a fixated smile to his face. Many nights ultimately boiled down to this, far away from the curious where he was safe to fantasize.

She was a powerful woman. Bon Bon shared an ingenious eye for creation and a masterful handiwork to her crafts that rivaled his own. But she was the bitter among her sweets and that always baffled him. From his scant visits to Sugarland, Beppi hardly saw a crowd like his over in her domain and he figured that was why she was always so riled up, and that thinking was why he had taken to sending her little gifts over the years to at least show that someone was thinking sweetly of her.

His eyes began to widen and his chest tightened as he caught the lights on in the tallest tower. He couldn't stop thinking of her now that he started. She was simply a beautiful woman, remarkably thin despite her candy motifs. She had long batting lashes and honey colored eyes, just like his own though he couldn't remember how they ever gained their hues. She was aggressive and confident and it just made his own wild heart flutter violently in his chest. She played hard and he had aways been gleeful to return her shots as she just sparked something reckless within himself too. Beppi gripped the lap bar and keened softly, swearing that his own pupils were turning into hearts, that's how deep and encompassing that strong feeling felt to him.

Oh, how he craved to have a woman that matched his own drum beats…

The carriage began to descend and with that, so did his return to reality. Beppi sank back into his seat and crossed his arms, thinking. Perhaps she would like something else...he hadn't been seeing any of his gifts return to him, so he had to wonder if she truly had been keeping them after all this time. As he pushed himself out of his ride, the clown continued his pondering while walking back out to the heart his carnival.

* * *

Tonight was a shotgun night. Bon Bon was cradling it underneath a pink shawl as she kept her footwork as lazy as possible among the common folk. She kept her face ahead and the cowl up around her face to obscure herself, listening like a hunter for any signs of trouble. All around her, she heard nothing but chatter and laughter and no indications that she had been seen yet, and for that she was grateful.

Her iconic tiered dress would have been too obvious, let alone heavy for a warm night like this. So, paired with the long cloak was a soft purple summer dress. It made her blend in remarkably well with all the other women who were wearing their nicest hats and gowns for a lively night out.

The Baroness kept her eyes trained for any signs of green among the crowds. All of her jelly penguins had been born a delicious and bright lime consistency, though Bon Bon was starting to doubt their survival skills when she saw all the hungering children scaling the food kiosks. She had to stop and curl her lip in disgust as she watched a snake vendor with googly eyes pour hot chocolate onto a plate of funnel cakes. The audacity offended her, of those noodly pastry shapes and that sickening greasy sugar smell. She had to turn her nose fast lest her boomstick exposed itself early.

She had to be fast in this freakshow galley, lest she make contact with that awful twit in bicolored paint. Bon Bon quickly passed over the signs stationed before the tents, trying to make sense of them. If there were some sort of animal spectacle, she would assume there would be some sort of indicator. She quickly flipped through possible spots in her mind, from dunk tanks to petting zoos and even those bottle stacked stall games. All the while, she could feel the butt of her gun pressing firmly against her hip bone from how tensely she was cradling it.

Green...there wasn't a whole lot of green objects she could see right now, and that annoyed her greatly. In fact, she saw so many reds and yellows that fall must have come early. Blue was incredibly dominant and that was the color that stirred the raging bull within her. She began to shove her way through the masses, ignoring the reactions coming her way.

It was like a kaleidoscope of madness twisting around her. Children screaming, young lovers cooing, the shrill bells of winning blows and of baseballs smacking into metal...bright lights flashing as slide whistles shrieked into the night beneath the monstrous crashing of coaster wheels along rattling rails as they carried bellowing victims down into the pits of the infernal carnival. The smells were revolting, of corrupted sugar in hot oils, the smells of fouled mud and animals, of salty popcorn and strange exotic wares being aired. It was a full frontal assault to her senses and spun her brain so fast that her brows tightened sharp in an effort to halt it. She growled in frustration and pushed her way into an open spot, glaring around for mercy.

She saw the tail end of something green, just disappearing behind one of the many tents. Her eyes widened and a barbaric green stretched itself from ear to ear. Bon Bon's long fingers wrung themselves around the barrel of her shotgun as she clutched it closer underneath her shawl and began to creep forward.

Oddly enough, nobody seemed to notice her outlandish behavior. She heard the same sounds of the circus spiraling behind her and was thankful that it continued to hold its powerful hex over the inhabitants. Her ears instead were straining to listen for anything: a pattering of flippered feet, a stray honk...perhaps that unmistakable sticky sound of wiggling jelly. She was almost crouched now, stalking like a barn cat along the wet straw and winding alleys of these wild grounds. Her weapon started to creep out from under her shawl as her eyes took a twinkling glint to them in the shadows, her grin almost salivating from a savage glee the second she heard that trademark squawking.

_They were here._

Her finger caressed the arc of the trigger. She wasn't going to actually shoot them, though to look down the barrel of such a weapon was too easy a negotiator. It wasn't sniffing out the syrupy blood of the penguins, no. Rather, she was intending on simply sending a kind neighborly message to a certain someone in a dashing little top hat.

* * *

Just another hour more and then it was time to close up shop. In his younger years, Beppi had let his domain run at almost all hours while he partied like an animal with the rest of them, but time was starting to catch up with him. His knees had really started to winge after his little stunt at the dart booth, but he had long learned to ignore the pain. Often, a quick stroll to a lemonade stand was enough to quench his worries and elate his inner boy, and that was exactly what he did.

He sidled up to the wooden stand once he had located it over the sea of heads. The clown did a wink and a little finger gun at the dog person running it, though he glanced down and saw two boys with cups for heads that were staring up at him with pure wonder. Beppi looked his gesture and tucked his hand back into his pocket while smiling sheepishly. The boys looked at one another - one with a blue nose and the other with red - before they beamed and started jabbing at one another with their own finger guns. The boy in red grabbed two cups of juice when his turn was up and he was fast to scamper away while his other half gasped and chased after with his hand weapon extended. Beppi watched them leave and pulled his hand back out to marvel at it, smiling.

The bartender was chuckling while preparing the next order. He made a comment that the clown was making a good impression as always. Beppi toasted the man with his glass when it came and took a heavy swig of it.

He examined the contents, admiring the pink tinge swimming around with the pulp. The proprietor asked him what his plans were for the rest of the evening while cleaning the sticky counter, to which the clown shrugged and leaned back. The dog paused and pricked up an ear as he glanced back over.

It wasn't like his boss to be quiet. If he was a bold man, he would have straight out said that it looked like the jester was...brooding. Beppi's profile was certainly fitting for a man who had a lot on his mind, with a leg kicked back and arms crossed. He occasionally broke pose to knock back another swig and if it hadn't been lemonade in that frosted cup, the resemblance to downing liquor was uncanny. Beppi didn't linger in that phase long, for he glanced back, saluted at the vendor and happily announced that tonight was a bubble bath sort of night.

The dog stared, bewildered and a bit bristling at the mental imagery as he watched the clown toss his cup into the nearest rubbish bin and slip back into the masses.

Beppi kept his smile going until he was able to veer into the back alleys of his circus. One he was alone, he exhaled heavily and rolled his shoulders into a slouch; they were stinging from stiffness. He knitted his brows while examining a few crates that had been stowed away from public view. He'd have to get those new pennant flags strung up soon for the summer festival...Beppi took a seat on one of the boxes and propped an elbow on his knee in order to rest his chin on a palm. It was just one of those nights where the spark did its best but ultimately hid down in his stomach, and it reminded him of how old and prone he was getting.

Mainly, it was exactly those same cherished routines he loved that were the reason he often slipped into fits like this, which he had coined as "adult time" sessions. Unwelcome sorrows could twist the thought of balloons and playing on ferris wheels to feel silly and immature, and they almost always caged him whenever his thoughts drifted towards...her. Again. They were showing up more and more as the years passed.

He also thought of those two boys, remembering how they wore pants that matched their nose colors and how they had regarded him. Youth was a treasure and they were so precious to him as they still danced in the naivety of life. Beppi's smile slowly returned as he recounted their mimicry and how they giggled at each other, lost in their imaginations. His mind slowly slipped into the wondrous what-ifs, trying to imagine how clownlike they could be since they both sported one part to his colors. Sweet little noses, eyes full of joy, such a spring in their steps while following his footwork. They would look fantastic in matching suits and could learn all his tricks, perhaps inspiring the next generation of the young at heart…

He looked at his gloved hands and heavily exhaled. It was a terrifying idea to remember that he was quickly reaching that threshold where soon the biological clock would be nothing more than a ghostly ticking. A man of his age should have long settled down by now. Shameful. He was shameful.

Beppi's foot was bouncing on his unburdened leg but he didn't stop it. He was a nasty fidgeter when nerves became too much but he was also a master showman: hecklers and critics didn't bother him. The idea of loneliness at his age did. For all the friends he could make in a day, at the end of it there was nobody more familiar than the old face of loneliness to see him to bed.

He rocked slowly, eyes closed and feeling more unsettled as his smile quivered. His chest was threatening to heave and it would have done so if he didn't feel something touch his restless leg. The clown jumped in his seat and flinched at something green looking up at him.

It was a penguin. He stared at it for a moment before catching a whiff of...lime. The penguin stared back at him with its beady black eyes and then gave a cheerful squawk. A few seconds later and Beppi found himself being swarmed on all flanks by more of the chipper birds. He looked between all of them, twisting his body and pulling down on his frill so that he could get a better look. They were all beginning to hop together around him, honking and waving their arms as if paying tribute to some pagan god they had journeyed far to find.

The one who had touched him had clapped its flippers together and somehow summoned a snowball that it offered to him. The clown cocked his head but accepted it, sniffing it for reasons he could not fathom but found a sharp cherry flavor. Curious, he scraped his teeth against the gritty surface and his eyes twinkled as the unmistakable flavors of sherbet graced his tongue. The penguin hopped again and squawked with glee.

"_Weck!"_

Suddenly, all the other penguins joined it by repeating the strange bird noises, jumping and conjuring their own snowballs to offer the clown. Beppi's eyes darted between them all and he dropped the sphere so that he could cup his cheeks and not care about his sticky fingers. A grand boyish smile returned to his face as he cackled and kicked his legs.

They were so cute!

Watching them felt like some drug had been shot right into his bloodstream, infecting his body with happy juice and returning him to his normal state. He slipped off the box and did a little hop with them to see their reactions. After they did, he bounced between his feet in a skipping little dance while they all copied his movements. The clown laughed and they squawked, together forming a small dance circle behind the tents.

Beppi spun around in a circle and they followed suit while waddling on their stumpy legs with their arms out like airplane wings. He noticed there were five of them now once he had actually slowed to do a head count, and they were all looking up at him with fond gazes. The clown sank into a crouch, one palm on a knee as he rubbed his chin in thought. Curious, he repeated the same bird noises to the closest one in front of him. The penguin looked around at its cohorts before waving its flippers around and telling some grandiose story...which was a shame because Beppi could not understand it.

As he watched, his brows raised as he remembered the lime smell he was smelling again. He sank onto his knees and reached reached out to fondly pat the lead penguin's head, his smile slipping into a sloppy one as a realization hit him.

These must be _candied_ penguins. With their color and smell, they simply had to be and they were here just for him, embracing him now and cooing and wagging their little jelly tails as he was swarmed by their jiggly bodies. The implications in his mind were staggering and they were making his heart race within his chest as his eyes dulled into a hazy state of pure adoration. Beppi wrapped his arms around the front bird, hugging it close to his body as he sighed. She did care!

She must have cared a little too much, as he didn't even notice the shotgun in his face until his lips were tasting metal.

* * *

There was nothing more sweet than the delightful taste of catching a thief in the act. It hadn't been hard at all for her to follow the trail when all she had to do was follow the noise to find the idiot jumping around with her penguins and making a fool of himself. She saw the matter entire entirely different, assuming that her trained birds were encasing the clown with their sticky bodies, holding him in place long enough for her to step in and finish the job. They all whined as they saw her and pulled themselves back while the clown blinked stupidly at the double barrels pressed flush against his mouth.

Beppi was frozen as he took a few moments to realize what was happening but he played the smart move by slowly starting to back off, his throat wheezing out a series of small cackles. He didn't put his hands up as he brought himself back to his feet and instead remained hunched over in a stance she equated to aggression. His bright golden eyes mirrored her own in the wide-eyed stare they shared. Over the years, it had become a common greeting between them.

Among the residents of the isle, they were the two that had become known for their legendary battles. All was fair in territory and business and between the two of them, the art of hedonism was a serious affair. He made his moves or she shot first and after that it was always a spiral of chaos that hardly made a lick of sense even with context. It was a punchline now to the bystanders that queens and clowns apparently didn't mix.

Bon Bon yanked the shawl out of her face and tightened her grip on her shotgun, watching the clown with an intense glare. She tightly wound like the cobra to his mongoose and he bared his teeth at her. He always treated their turf wars with the same bounce and nosiness as those sly little weasels, always sticking his grimey paws in places where they shouldn't be before he slipped out...but to her surprise, tonight Beppi didn't immediately start wailing on her with his ridiculous tricks but instead took a few steps back and held one hand out, silently requesting a moment. She grunted and lowered her gun just enough to let the idiot speak his peace.

Beppi just stood there, as lost and wordless as she had ever seen him. He looked between the scattered penguins who were now trembling around him, trying to make sense of their part and her own. He knew he didn't have all night to puzzle out a theory and the presence of her boomstick was making his buffer time drop faster and faster with each heartbeat. Instead, he held a finger up while taking another step back. Bon Bon scowled at him.

It was a waste of her mercy that he didn't fight back. He always did, the giggling sadist. Irritated, she brought the gun back up to her face and squinted down the sights. Finally, the clown spun on his heels and hauled ass out of the back path as if the Devil himself was poking at him.

Bon Bon sighed and loosened up, leaning on her weapon like a cane as she shot a scathing look to her renegade creations. They all meeped quietly but began to form a single file line before her, following her with their heads down as she turned to retrace her steps out of the narrow passageways.

It wasn't difficult to stay out of sight while creeping around behind the tents, though it would have been a blow to the clown's ego and a stroke of her own if she had been able to get a good whack in with an audience to watch. She and Beppi had been feuding for years, after all. Everybody knew that.

Bon Bon pulled her shawl back up and tucked her gun underneath it when she was able to step back out into the public side, drawing gazes now that she had a line of bright green animals trailing behind her. In her peripherals, she could see people pausing to look while others sniffed the air, and she smiled to herself as a few voices behind to follow her too, heavily hinting that she was drawing a crowd of her own. They awed and asked questions about the birds and why they looked and smelled the way that they did. It brought forth a peaceful from the Baroness, who turned around to regard them.

Being discreet was her main objective tonight but the high of attention was starting to excite her. As fast as she was able to hide herself, her cover was slipping right back onto her thin shoulders and she stood like a martyr to the crowd, watching their faces twist from intrigue to surprise. Some attendees whispered to their partners while others just watched with mild interest, and there was even a penguin-faced onlooker who looked downright offended. As expected for a circus, it didn't take long for a small mob of children to push their way forward.

Compelled by innocence, it was the youth that never showed reluctance. Little kittens in sailor caps and humans in knee-high socks rushed in to regard the sugary animals that were as tall as them, while children with forks for heads or turtle shells for backs blinked and wobbled to get the best angles despite their awkward balance. The inspections seemed to have somewhat lifted the spirits of the gummy penguins, for they began to straighten up and warble curiously to the equally strange creatures. Their noises died down once their master spoke, their flippers hanging limp and their heads low as they listened to her master spin a lovely pitch: Sugarland promised many sweet things, and the penguins were just the tip of the iceberg.

Not tonight, however. It would only be a few more hours until the stars would slip away from the indigo sky and make way for the gorgeous sorbet colors of dawn. The Baroness emulated that damn clown with a spin on her own heels, but she strutted away with the vigor of a champion with a crowd of schmucks seeing her off. Oh, she hadn't felt this satisfied in _ages_, knowing that although the clown had stolen her birds, she had managed to sink her claws in and plunder his own followers for herself. One taste of decadence was all it will take before the simple fools will start rioting against her gates to enter her sacred grounds. Why settle for fried cakes when an artisan's bounty was right across the pond? It had been there for the taking for years...why didn't they ever want to break down her doors?

Despite the dilemma, Bon Bon was beginning to walk with a bit of a swagger, still riding the high of feeling important. Admired, awed...revealed like some siren who had crawled out from the sapphire ocean to tempt the simple minded. Her gun had slipped from her shawl and was being swung about like a parasol as she enjoyed her ego. The birds all flinched when the business end swung in their direction, for they were afraid of the madwoman who called herself queen. They all avoided the tense looks of the butterscotch guards manning the main gates and tapped their wings nervously during the shuffle across the soft candy lawn. Bon Bon tapped each one on the tail with the butt of her gun as they filed into their pen, and she made a grand flourish of slamming the lock shut with a few tugs after.

Her smile was eerily pleasant and unnervingly playful as she gave a little princess wave to her creations and began her return to the comforts of her gingerbread castle. Her veins were throbbing with adrenaline and her legs felt jittery with girlish excitement. Flashbacks of the clown scuttling away made her burst into a light skip, laughing and doing a spin to spread out both her light dress and long shawl into the luke-warm night air. She looked up at the fading stars and grinned back to a cloud that looked like a happy face. It was starting to take on a slight pink tint, suggesting that a new day will be soon approaching. Bon Bon could feel the giddiness of the anticipation of it all, to wake up and dance onto her balcony and peer down to see a mob of faces peering up at her from beyond the rock candy walls and plead for her mercy after years of sparse visits.

She beelined through her candied halls and up the steps to her suite, spry and eager to perform sweet as she had been so willing to do in her youth. She kicked the chocolate door open and tossed her shawl onto the bed so that she could dance across the room and into the seat of her vanity. She was humming an old jingle to herself, one that her father had sang to his customers back when he ran his own candy shop. Bon Bon was even bouncing a bit in her chair as she retrieved a cloth and applied some mineral oil along the felted surface. She halted, right before she could even begin removing her war paint.

Dear god, she was getting old. The woman staring back at her gave a sour nod.

She lowered the towelette and frowned at her reflection. After all these years, she could perform makeup routines that would put theater starlets to shame, but not even the cakiest foundation could hide the beginning of crow's feet creeping in the corner of her eyes. In the moment, they were incredibly stark and gritty from the tightness of her bitter scowl.

Perhaps she was far too old to be dressing and acting like this. She was in her forties, though her obsessions were far more convincing than the freak in circus paint. Bon Bon closed her eyes and exhaled sharply, though her glare didn't carry over when she looked at herself again.

A stubborn old broad, that's what she was, but Bon Bon was nobody if not determined. Something had to have been up to make her kingdom famined over the years compared to that damned circus. She had living works of art and a theme park of her own and yet that annoying twit in the onesie had hundreds of fans that kissed his slippers.

It wasn't fair, this the same old mourning she subjected herself to every night. Her face stayed in its brooding pout during the wipedown and it fell even further once she set the rag down and returned to her balcony.

She hated that a small sniffle bounced in her throat while she looked down at her vacant grounds, wondering where it had all gone wrong. Sugarland was beautiful. It was fancy and original and purely decadent.

It was so very, very lonely, and that made everything about it feel all the more bitter.

* * *

The world was still asleep when he squinted up at the bright shine of the Sugarland gates. Sleep itself had abandoned him during the night, so he busied himself with letting his mind race. The clown took extra caution to cover the fresh bags under his eyes before presenting himself to the golden candied guards that stood at the gate towers. They weren't exactly impressed by him or the fancy black bowtie that had replaced his trademark frill.

He watched them both. The eldest of the duo simply sighed and began to descend from his tower while the youngest restlessly raised a lollipop throwing axe at the clown. Beppi ignored him in favor of tipping his hat to the guard he was more familiar with, keeping his eyes closed and his grin large to try and hide how exhausted he looked. Maybe this would be the first time in years that he could crack a joke about how much he enjoyed the look of their darling nutcracker-inspired uniforms...but that would waste their first occasion together without weapons at his throat. The clown held still as he was frisked by the short servant, wincing as those kneady little hands pinched at his skin beneath his suit. His eyes shot open once he heard the question of what he had behind his back.

The butterscotch guard raised his glossy brows when he saw the pink box being shifted towards the clown's front. It looked flimsy, like cardboard. He hummed and cautiously toed closer to inspect it. There weren't any odd stains or weird bulges, not even a suspicious scent coming from it. Though in his years protecting his ruler, he knew from experience that anything in the clown's possession was instantly suspicious. He placed his hands on nonexistent hips and demanded to know what was inside it.

Shockingly, Beppi was rather obedient. He shifted the box to one palm and flipped open the lid just enough for the guard to peek in. His smile was sparkling when the candy leaned back to look at him with a look of concern on his face.

The candy didn't seem to accept the gift was an attempt to make amends for yesterday, though the silence that followed was more awkward than the box itself. The guard squinted at Beppi with one eye before he sighed again and told him to stay put. He turned away and slowly began to waddle back towards his station. In the meantime, the younger sentry still kept his arm prepped for smashing, though he floundered uncomfortably when the clown gave him a little finger waggle in greeting.

The wait time that followed was as comfortable as the fatigue in his legs, for the longer he stood there under scrutiny, the more pained Beppi felt. His back was tremendously sore from sitting upright all night though he wasn't keen on making a joke of it now. Sweat began to bead above his colorful brows as the other guard continuously glared down at him. To preoccupy himself, Beppi pushed the lid open with his forefinger and looked inside.

It had taken him a tremendous amount of patience and sleepless hours to construct this little peace treaty, and that had been time better spent than simply tossing in bed or staring at the ceiling. He had been hunched like an artist over his magnum opus, stiff yet unrelenting as his focus strained to keep his hands controlled with brush and knives aplenty. He had made many things over the years to impress the Baroness, from paper mache animals to wooden carvings of...more animals. Girls loved animals, he just assumed. But this was no animal, except being a creature of divine beauty. He giggled to himself at how overdone that sounded in his head.

The cake inside the box was shaped more like a snowglobe than an actual cake but that was the beauty of it. He had picked up cooking tips over the years from random visitors at his food stalls, and had spent a great deal of time shaping cake and buttercream to set it into the perfect shape. He had labored even longer in setting the marzipan finish over it all to give the finished product a creamy glow to it, better serving as a secured space for all the toppings that followed. Pouting pink licorice lips, pink candy dust over the cheeks, black licorice bits to match the pink as they arced downwards to mimic sleeping eyes with long pretty lashes. The hair was easy to make as all he had to do was pipe chocolate frosting into swirls that hardened after drying, and the princess hat was a simple waffle cone that had been lined with candy ropes and cotton candy at the tip. He had worked his fingers numb and his eyeballs red from unrelenting tension, but the sleeping princess cake was gorgeous by his standards. He was hoping that its muse would think so too.

Beppi cleared his throat and straightened back up. He resumed his waiting in the increasingly uncomfortable silence, though he noticed fast that the youngest guard jolted back into a defensive stance whenever their eyes met. It made the clown snort. He wasn't as sadistic as many assumed and once he figured the kid out, he kept his gaze instead to the grand lawn beyond the gates. He saw lollipop trees and chocolate benches but the strangest thing that stood out was something large and lumbering as it crept through a multicolor thicket.

The clown leaned in further and stood on his tiptoes, ignoring the wheeze of surprise from the spire above him. The beast was the same shade of green as the penguins, which baffled him even further as the idea of some freakish mega penguin popped up in his head. Curious, he whistled at it and did his best imitation of the warbling noises but raised his brows when a pair of large green ears flipped up from over the tops of the technicolor bushes. A long green neck loaded with yellow spines followed and the clown found himself being stared down by an honest to god dragon, naught but fifty close feet away.

It stared back with an equally lost expression, no doubt coming to terms with the fact that it was staring at a clown of all things in a candy kingdom. Long braids of red and yellow dangled from its mighty jaws, only to be slurped down its gullet and a small plume of smoke crawled back out. When the clown whistled again, it bristled like a startled cat, looked around and immediately took flight to the heavens. Beppi watched it go, but glancing back down made him realize why it bolted as fast as it did.

The Baroness was beginning to descend the steps of her castle. Beppi's brows lifted and he hopped into place, using his free hand to pluck at his bowtie until it was sitting just right on his scant neck. He was grinning to save face but it began to crack the moment he saw her snap off a candy cane from a lawn statue and began wielding it like a spear. That was the moment where he remembered that he often dealt with a charging force of chaos, and that harbinger wore a pretty frosted dress.

* * *

Of course that nosey bastard had to show up yet again. She had been enjoying a wonderful morning to herself, nestled deep under her whipped blankets and dreaming of crowded days ahead. When a butler peeped in and meekly announced that the clown was back, he was chased back out as white as a sheet from the sudden burst of hateful energy erupting from his master's bed. Bon Bon had clawed her way out like a demon possessed, eyes sharp and face as red as her nightgown.

She had stormed down her staircase, snarling and stomping with a fury unmatched and unexplained. All thought left her brain once it fled before the mental image of that colorful idiot out at her gates, smiling that stupid smile and looking like an utter spectacle expecting a miracle. It had been like this for years, where she often steamed and reflected in peace but snapped like a wild dog the second his name was spoken or she saw his patterns. She had gone from agitated to outright unreasonable as her first instinct was to not just shriek at him to get his technicolor ass off her property but to break off a rod from one of her garden statues with the intent to ram it right up his prize booth. She saw the moment where he recognized his own death coming, from how his ridiculous smug face crumbled under her incoming charge. He scrambled back and tried to look presentable by thrusting something small and pink at her. The box was as effective as an umbrella to hold off the storm as the second those gates were opened she barged through and rammed it right back into his face.


End file.
